COMPOSERS: Sibelius
LABELS: Allegro Films
ALBUM TITLE: Fims by Chrstopher Nupen: The Early Years; Maturity and Silence
WORKS: find works
PERFORMER: Vladimir Ashenazy, Elizabeth Söderström, Boris Belkin etc
CATALOGUE NO: A 05 CND
PRESENTATION: *****
Until the mid-1980s, Christopher
Nupen’s films had been about
performers. And then the challenge
came to make one about a composer
– and to focus more on the works
than on the life. So why Sibelius?
And why then? Nupen was aware
of the unusually large archive of
Sibelius’s own writings about his
creative life, and he felt that the
time was ripe for reassessment. He
was right: for, in the decade that
followed his films, Sibelius’s music
once again leapt to the forefront.
Nupen’s priority was to uncover
the meaning of Sibelius’s music for us
today. And this new DVD of his two
films – The Early Years and Maturity
and Silence – vindicates his decision.
Biography is, of course, unavoidable,
and essential. Nupen’s quietly and
seriously narrated survey takes a
conservative path, chronologically,
through the symphonies. Each one
is related to the composer’s acute
inner struggles ‘to write what is
ultimately and forever right’. This is
not a naturally visual subject. But,
fortunately for Nupen, the natural
world affected Sibelius even more
than art or music itself – and his
natural world was Finland.
Sensitively edited extracts
from the symphonies, played by
the Swedish Radio Orchestra
under Vladimir Ashkenazy, and
Nupen’s own narrative, have as
their backdrop the snow-covered
pines, lakes and skies of the Finnish
landscape. A pity Nupen was so
sparing with paintings: Järnefelt’s
canvas of Koli, for instance, is the
obvious reference for the Fourth
Symphony, and would have varied
the eternal travelogue photography.
Little will be learned about Sibelius’s
smaller works, either. But the
sobriety and honesty of these films
make them an enduring resource
for those who know little, nothing,
or everything about Sibelius.
Hilary Finch